Adobo Criollo Sergio Antonio Ortiz Rivera

This is the last poem of the NaPoWriMo 2014 Rain thirty days of morning showers— am I to be for you like the rain, or shall I sleep alone amid a yoke of silence?

the house of souls a doorway stopped by clouds inside my dream      he lives alone, the wilderness will not let him go I come from the wilderness I awaken in this body broken like a sword I ache thinking of the seasons, how they pass, and how I change into Tiresias’ weathered sex

a triumph of light— the sun soared into view rejoicing        in its own splendor, the mask of darkness fell it's clear as a veil of light I knew                   I had felt the freshness of dawn

Él limpia con esponja tersa la arena de la soledad sobre mi piel y aplica el agua salada de la autoestima a mi cuerpo.

Bashō and his friends gaze at the moon threading  the sky  with rules for their linked poem

Remembering he sponges the grit of loneliness from my skin and dabs the salt water of self-esteem over my body I carry my life like a stone   in a tattered pocket, yet I have a weaving song, a healing tone, inside me

The Barrier I would barricade myself inside a poem. Becoming increasingly critical, I would see my own image everywhere and hide my enemies on that side of the mirror. I would fall in love twice a year, buy 1000 roses. With no gift of abundance inside me, I would  worship the penuries of sobriety, allow them to catch up to my sorrows. I would wake his stony heart and give him one of flesh.

Para Gabo despierto sobre flores de rododendro amarillo--Cien Años de Soledad

for Gabo a hundred years of solitude— I awaken to a blossom of yellow rhododendron

Young & Old - tanka sequence here I am, at 63 waiting for the rain… I am old                        a dry head among breezy spaces, yet I feel young, drunk in the midst of leaves whispering to the Titans in the land of enchantment… here I am

transcendence in the middle of the sunflower I call Your name and paint the migration of geese some things breathe, exhale and puzzle, reminding us of vast blue skies grant me laughter's bounty, and eyes filled with affection for the sun touches deeper than thought

I listen, hear nothing, only the lion, the lion of such   hollowness, roaring down my bones…

Death and Royalties In India, the high costs of seed and chemicals  have produced a debt trap, and 284,694 Indian farmers  have committed suicide. Why is putting a toxic gene  into a plant cell “creating” or “inventing” a plant? There is  no intellectual property in a seed. The “Life Lord” of our  planet is collecting rent from farmers. Monsanto’s  seeds of suicide—  the dark stain  of engineered  cotton

Gabo has passed away March 6, 1927– April 17, 2014 From Gabriel Garcia Marquez I learned there are old men with wings, drowned men so gorgeous they must be named Estéban, women so stunning that when they die they ascend to heaven in plain sight, and banana companies, like Monsanto, are always ready to steal, or contaminate, our lands.

something  has come between us— it will not sleep it whimpers settles in the interstice

bailing out-- no parachute beside my bed

in la Belle Epoque    of the imagination,  the egg came first... a box without corners an isolated oddity

Jolts from the not too Distant Past no way to bail out, no parachute beside my bed…       I wrapped myself around the AIDs epidemic in the 80’s.  The fear grew well into the 90’s, when I saw a man on a starvation drip. (no more Lazarus for him) He had had enough of needles and ventilators and AZT and gauze and scars and tubing. Suddenly my fear was gone, and there was a raw sense of militancy. I was determined to give him a dignified burial. What else could I do for a person who had starved himself to death rather than go on fighting a lost battle. One really needs to be brave and distinguished to accomplish such a deed with honor. I knew that, the nurses knew that.  His family knew nothing but the looming gossip around them.

come as you are before it snows again— chrysanthemum shaped fireworks explode over the sky